| . |
 |
How are you missing what I'm saying? I said Durant is a top 3 player in the league. He has amazing talent.Originally Posted by NMThreeMVP
He is however not perfect and lacks heart so he can't be the emotional leader of his team. He wasn't it for the thunder and isn't it for GS. He is a Beta.
That's fine. He is still super talented and you can win with him as the best player on the team, but you have to surround him with another player who will be the emotional leader.
I call BS on this entire entire idea. I get exactly what you’re saying, but having Draymnd provide emotional leadership is not why they won. It was because KD made key basketball plays on both ends of the court when it mattered. He matched LeBron play for play and made his teammates better. Replace Draymond with Serge Ibaka and they still win and he’s still the MVP.
Last edited by NMThreeMVP; 02-12-2018 at 08:25 PM.
They won without KD too. Saying he was the "key" is a fallacy. They had Barnes and won too.
Who said Draymond being the emotional leader was why they won? I NEVER made that claim. I simply said KD is a super talented beta who needs an emotional leader because he cannot fulfill that role for a team.
Last edited by Mythrol; 02-12-2018 at 08:29 PM.
The idea that KD lacks heart because he didn’t want to play with Russ in Oklahoma City is played out. Dude gets to live in SF, follow his passion and play on a better team. Choosing an easier path and one that is more personally gratifying does not equate to lacking heart.
Playing like you’re disinterested against the Kings and never showing up against the 76ers when you’re in a dog fight for playoff seeding might be indicative of lacking heart.
Last edited by NMThreeMVP; 02-12-2018 at 08:36 PM.
So the finals MVP wasn’t key? This is some Olympic level mental gymnastics!
Emotional Leadership is what Kendrick Perkins gets a check for.
KD is an alpha on the court.
KD lacks heart because he has never shown to be a leader. Look at this year, he's just copying big brother Green with getting technicals.
Choosing the easy path instead of competing IS showing lack of heart. Would Jordan EVER have joined the Pistons? Heck no. KD is a super talented Beta. It is what it is. He has the best talent on the team. But doesn't have the personality to be the leader. He's mentally weak.
Where did I say that? You keep trying to make it sound like I'm saying KD is bad.
He isn't. He's a great talent and top 3 in the league.
He just also happens to have the personality of a beta and needs someone else to be the emotional leader on the team. It's fine if you surround him with someone like Green who can fill that void.
Would Durant be as good as LBJ by himself without any other superstar on his team? No. Because he doesn't command that leadership role. Fortunately for him, he doesn't need that because he took the easy path.
You did say he wasn't key to their winning. We agree that he's a top 3 player. The facts are, he was the best player on a team with really young guys that he carried to the finals, was a league MVP, and Finals MVP. Where is there any evidence that he's a beta that can't lead a team? That narrative is very First Take-ish and was applied to LeBron for years.
I get it. He left OKC and that makes him a Beta in your eyes, but that's in spite of no evidence that he's ever been anything other than the Man on every team he's been on.
If AD had the on court temperament of KD we'd have more wins. KD ain't losing to the Kings!
Jazz are making the playoffs. I don't know who's spot they take but they'll be there
The take has never been applied to Lebron because he took a team of scrubs to the finals. What has KD ever done with a scrub team? KD in his final year at OKC QUIT on his team when they were leading the series. KD has lost plenty to the Kings, that take is just silly. The year he was a "leader" he couldn't face his friend Lebron and got crushed in the finals.
What has KD ever done to prove he wasn't a beta? He took the beta path to a NBA championship. He copies big brother Green with all the technicals. There's far more evidence of him being a beta than anything pointing to him leading a team.
Don't ever interrupt my arguments with Mythrol to talk about relevant objective basketball stuff.
You lost me after THE TAKE HAS NEVER BEEN APPLIED TO LEBRON...
,
You're drunk or a toddler or suffering from memory issues like that guy in Memento.
Last edited by NMThreeMVP; 02-12-2018 at 09:32 PM.
The Lebron=choke artist / Can't hit the big shot narrative encompassed the whole 1st cleveland era pretty much. I remember it vividly because I believed it at the time. And I was really wrong on that take.
True story. Their coach must be poached for our own good.
If you Jimmer it, they will come.
Ironic you would stop there and not answer the questions I posed about Durant. It's almost like you have no answer to Durant being a beta because every action he's ever done in the NBA has been Beta.
Last edited by Mythrol; 02-13-2018 at 07:56 AM.
Where's Rondo in that last pic?Ironic you would stop there and not answer the questions I posed about Durant. It's almost like you have no answer to Durant being a beta because every action he's ever done in the NBA has been Beta.
I didn't make the picture so I dunno.
I didn't answer the question because it's obvious you're being very selective and don't really like Durant. Dude was a league MVP. He was the unquestioned leader of a team that went to the finals when he was 24. He was the lead guy and alpha on a Texas team (he did't sign up with a #1 recruiting class and go to Kentucky or Duke). It's revisionist history to say Durant was anything other than the leader of the Thunder when he was healthy, or that Harden and Westbrook were top 10 guys when he got them to the finals. If you're going to literally dismiss the entirety of his career up until he left for Golden State, that's fine. If you're going to have opinions like, "Durant wasn't the key" to the Warriors winning last year, when he was literally the finals MVP, that's also fine.Ironic you would stop there and not answer the questions I posed about Durant. It's almost like you have no answer to Durant being a beta because every action he's ever done in the NBA has been Beta.
Thinking LeBron never getting the same criticism that you're levying at Durant... that's also fine.
None of it is true, but you're entitled to your opinion. But the reason I stopped reading and won't reply further is become when someone is so obviously biased and wrong, I've got better things to do than go back and forth with them on a message board. My List on Netflix isn't going to clear itself!
Putting up numbers does not a leader make. We should agree on that because AD is putting up literally historical numbers never seen before this year. Durant won the MVP because he was on the best team in the league putting up the best numbers. That does not mean he is the emotional leader of that team.
I don't even get how you could make that argument when we see it first hand every night with AD.
He quit on his team when they had the lead in the western conference. He took the easy path to a championship and literally became the beta on that team.
You can be the most talented player on the team and still not be a natural competitor or the emotional leader. Everything Durant has done has shown he isn't a competitor or a leader. The most talented guy on the court, yes, but not a leader.
Last edited by Mythrol; 02-13-2018 at 11:03 AM.
I make the argument because I wasn't born yesterday. I've actually consciously been an NBA fan for 30+ years! I'm not retroactively changing how I viewed Durant then, based on how anyone perceives his decision to leave OKC now.
KD was the leader on those teams, the go to guy, the guy who always stepped up. At the time, you'd have been considered a moron for thinking otherwise. Until last year, Westbrook was nothing more than a flamboyant and demonstrative chucker in the eyes of many. Harden was thought to be a dynamic 6th man and Ibaka was a 30 year old pretending to be in his 20s when KD got them to the finals. Those are the facts! AD hasn't won a playoff game and can barely stay on the court when his team desperately needs him. He can't get wins at home against lottery teams when the stakes are literally making the playoffs or not. That has never been the case with Durant.
KD as a 24 year old vs AD as a 24 year old (in terms of leading a team) really is not a good comparison. I could care less what you perceive to be the mental make up of players. What I'm talking about is their ability to be an alpha when it matters most on the court. That's all we can actually account for. AD is an on court beta. He defers to everyone. Part of that is his game and his inability to get his own shot. KD has never been a beta personality as a player on the court, that's why the partnership with Westbrook never worked for him.
Durant has never been on as bad of a team as AD either. He's never had to deal for the amount of injuries on his team either.
Durant "leading" a team with Westbrook, Harden, and Ibaka as his other players is totally different than AD's best player being Tyreke while dealing with injuries to Anderson, Gordon, and Jrue.
There is no comparison because AD never had those teams. Are you going to sit here and say AD wouldn't have made the finals on that OKC team if you replace Durant with him? Of course they still would. Heck, AD might not have crumpled at the thought of playing his "friend" Lebron in the finals.
The most Beta thing Durant has done isn't even joining Golden State. It's how he actions just like the Beta friend this season talking trash and getting technicals while hiding behind his protector.
Durant isn't even alpha enough to keep his own personality he's had his entire NBA career. Heck, he hides behind fake accounts to try to defend himself because he is too afraid to say it personally! You can't get more Beta than that.
Agreed, not that you needed my support
Basketball.
You have serious issues with Durant that I have no interest in debating. IF you felt this way about Durant from his rookie year until 2016, then good for you. Otherwise you really sound like a bitter ex, and I'm fortunate in that I don't have any of those, so I will choose not deal with that energy on here either! KD either isn't who you thought he was, or he is exactly who you thought he was and you knew it the entire time, but for some reason harbor some resentment anyway.
Dude chose to leave an organization in Oklahoma to work for a better organization in San Francisco, and immediately reached the top of his game by winning a title and finals MVP. Plus, he's thinking about what he wants to do outside of basketball (which will constitute the majority of his life if he's lucky), and made a decision that better suits his long term goals that have nothing to with fan opinion of him. That's real beta stuff.
...says dude on message board, not using his government name, to talk trash about a dude he'd never trash in a million years to his face. This is interesting, please continue.
Absolutely not the same, in his defense. If you voluntarily enter the public sphere (as all celebrities do) then you tacitly consent to the idea that the things you say will have an audience. To then hide your genuine viewpoints by pretending to be another person is entirely dishonest.
And no, it's not like any other person using a pseudonym (say, Eric Blair publishing as George Orwell) because NBA stars do not suffer mass backlash from public commentary in the same way. If Durant was under serious threat by making his views known, then it would be fine: Durant just did it to avoid having to take personal responsibility.
As for it being on a message board, that's because this format is specifically here to enable anonymous interaction: there is no tacit consent to public acknowledgement.
And don't be so rude as to assume Mythrol would never say those things to KD's face: I, for one, know that I would say them to his face because I know I can back up what I had to say and if Durant didn't like hearing it he shouldn't have ran to Golden State.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote